A Quote by Alessandro Nivola

I started off as an actor thinking that I would be this Romeo, this dashing leading man. It turns out that I'm a character actor. — © Alessandro Nivola
I started off as an actor thinking that I would be this Romeo, this dashing leading man. It turns out that I'm a character actor.
I have a problem with the term 'leading man.' It's so limiting; it involves not upsetting anyone. Obviously, we have anti-heroes now, but if we're talking about the two tropes - character actor and leading man - I would so rather be a character actor. That's why I have a career.
I'm an actor. I'll take a lead if it's offered. The really good actors can fill a character, no matter what the role is. A good leading man is a character actor; a good character actor can be a leading man.
How you look is part of what acting is, but the way I look at it, every actor is a character actor. Someone once told me at a casting, 'You're a character actor in a leading man's body,' and I can live with that.
For an actor to be working at all is a kind of miracle, because most actors aren't. So it's just silly for a working actor to say, 'Oh, I don't care if anybody knows I'm gay' especially if you're a leading man. Personally, I wouldn't advise a gay leading man-type actor to come out.
The ability to stretch my range into all genres and characters is something I take great pleasure in doing. I thoroughly enjoy it. I consider myself a character actor, though some think of me as a leading man. As an actor, I love shifting gears from character to character, and the more range I can expand, the better.
Well, I think probably when I first got in the business, I wasn't thinking of being strictly a character actor. But I knew I wanted to be a working actor, and as the years have gone on, I just naturally evolved into that. Because, y'know, I'm not a leading guy. Never was.
I started off doing plays as a theater actor. But I never thought of it in terms of it leading anywhere. I was just trying to be the best actor that I could be in the context of what I was doing.
I think every leading man wants to be a character actor, and every character actor wants to be a leading man.
When I started off as an actor, the last thing I wanted to do in the world was make money. I was under the impression, when I started off as an actor, that the more money I made, the more it would diminish from my creativity and my capacity to be an artist.
As a young actor, I was advised to bide my time. Back then, there weren't good roles for someone like me. There were handsome leading men and character actors for smaller supporting roles. But I was told to hang in there, and it was good advice. We're all character actors now. Even a handsome man is a character actor at my age.
I've never thought of myself as a classic leading man. I'm a character actor who happens to play leading roles. Come on, look at me. I'm really Desperate Dan.
I'm not a leading man. I'm a character actor. That's what I want to be.
I was never really a character actor - I was a leading man who was always cast as a character. I wanted to be Jack Nicholson or Jean Gabin.
I'm a character actor, but I look like a leading man.
I haven't aged into a character actor. I'm an old leading man.
None of the actor methods ever discussed what it would be like to play a character on film for over a decade, and what it must be like to return to a character and imagine the time off-screen, which is interesting. There's something as an actor that I enjoy about evolving characters.
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